Bruins' season ends with 3-1 loss to Canadiens

No Stanley Cup this year for Boston. Montreal took a 2-0 lead in Game 7 and never looked back.

Mike Loftus The Patriot Ledger

BOSTON – Dig too many holes, leave too many doors and windows open, and eventually it’s going to catch up to you.

Re-learning that lesson may ultimately benefit the Bruins in the future, but it’ll take a while before they can even consider that. The present is what matters, and in real-time, real-world terms, their chance to win the 2014 Stanley Cup has passed.

They fell to the Canadiens, 3-1, in Game 7 of Round 2 on Wednesday night at the TD Garden, beaten both by the sparkling goaltending of Carey Price (29 saves) and their maddening habits of tempting fate and repeating history.

Just like Games 3 and Game 6 – both losses – the Bruins surrendered a remarkably easy goal at the start of the game, and took their sweet time pushing back. They failed to convert nearly all of their best chances, unable to even force Price to make saves on a couple of occasions. They couldn’t kill a penalty or score a power-play goal when their season was on the line.

“At this time of time year, you’ve got to play your best hockey,” coach Claude Julien said. “I don’t think we got to that point. I don’t think we played badly, but we certainly weren’t playing as well as we could.”

The Bruins thought they were on their way to finding a groove after winning Games 4 and 5 to take a 3-2 lead in the series, but doomed themselves to a Game 7 with a 4-0 loss on Monday night. A bobbled Torey Krug-to-Kevan Miller pass in the defensive zone led to an empty-net goal for Lars Eller just 2:11 into that game, and the Bruins never really did much to respond.

Knowing that was a scenario to avoid Wednesday, the Bruins let it happen again. This time, veteran center Gregory Campbell inexplicably raced in to support Johnny Boychuk’s battle with Montreal’s Brandon Prust in the corner, getting there too late to keep Prust from feeding Daniel Briere. Defenseman Matt Bartkowski failed to cover the front of the net, from where Dale Weise knocked in Briere’s pass after just 2:18.

Again, no pushback, despite a first-period power play. The Bruins put almost no pressure on Price until the last two minutes of the period.

“It’s always tough when you don’t start with the lead,” said Brad Marchand, twice penalized – both calls open to debate – for interactions with Price. “A few times (in the series), they got ... a goal early, and were able to maintain the lead.

“It’s tough playing from behind, trying to play catch-up.”

A Max Pacioretty goal at 10:22 of the second period – after Patrice Bergeron, Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson all overskated a puck on their way out of the defensive zone – was answered by Jarome Iginla’s power-play goal at 17:58, but the B’s made sure to kill their momentum.

First, David Krejci was sent off for holding the stick, forcing the Bruins to play shorthanded for the first 1:15 of the third period. And in that third period, they managed only eight shots on goal.

“That first goal definitely sucked the energy out of us, and it was hard to get it back,” Bergeron said. “We had some shifts that we did, but when we had some good chances, they scored that second goal again.

“Bottom line is, we’ve got to execute and score.”

A Boychuk penalty that led to a fluke power-play goal for Briere (it was a pass that hit Zdeno Chara’s skate and squeezed through Tuukka Rask) made it 3-1 with 2:53 left, but memories of last year’s stunning Game 7 rally against Toronto quickly surfaced: Andrei Markov was penalized with 2:01 to go, Rask (15 saves) was pulled for a sixth attacker – but there was no rally, no comeback. Unlike the Maple Leafs, who had rallied from a 3-1 deficit to force last year’s Game 7, the Habs weren’t walking away from this opportunity.

The Canadiens – Weise and star defenseman P.K. Subban in particular – made it a post-game point to say that the lack of respect they felt the Bruins should have shown throughout the series was a motivational tool.

The B’s played Game 7, and much of the series, as if the only thing that could motivate them was a multiple-goal deficit. They played some pretty good hockey under such conditions in in Games 2 (win) and 3 (loss), but deteriorated after that.

“I’ve said that before,” Bergeron said. “You can’t rely on comebacks to win every game.

“That’s it. That’s an example right there, that it’s not going to happen every time.”